ORPHEUS THE STUTTERER: A POETICS OF SILENCE

The Press at Colorado College is very excited to announce the publication of its newest title, Orpheus the stutterer: a poetics of silence, by the poet & letterpress printer Alan Loney. From the colophon:

The design and production of  large book projects distorts time in strange ways: the process seems unending, but there is never enough time; there are many steps & pieces, but the imagined & unpredictable gestalt drives the whole thing; once the long production ends the fun really begins; the book begins again & again with each new reader. You may be reading this colophon at the beginning or end of your experience with this book — either way we are grateful  for your company.

The typeface used throughout most of Orpheus is Lirico, in its Roman & Italic forms and in Normal and Light weights. Lirico was designed  by Hendrik Weber and published  by OurType in 2008. The Greek typeface is Neohellenic, produced & published  by the Greek Font Society. All of  the text was letterpress printed  from photopolymer plates on our well-loved Vandercook 219. The large sections of color on the covers and the opening and closing pages of  the book were printed from collagraph blocks made with a brush texture in acrylic gel medium. The covers were hand-painted with acrylic gesso, and the pages were painted with acrylic ink wash.

Orpheus was made in a variable edition. The text and division of  the pages is the same in each copy but how they were articulated with color changes from book to book.

Orpheus the stutterer: a poetics of silence was written by the poet & letterpress printer Alan Loney. This book was designed and printed  by Aaron Cohick at The Press at Colorado College during the end of 2012 and  beginning of 2013. Two student apprentices at The Press, Taryn “Centauryn” Wiens and John “John Baskerville” Christie, assisted in the binding and  hand-coloring. Corie Cole supported the production of this book in various ways, many of them intangible, but all of them absolutely vital. This book would not exist without the participation of our wonderful community here at Colorado College.

Forty copies were printed, thirty of which are for sale.

The images above & below show the same page spreads from three different copies of the book, in order to show how the hand-coloring varies from copy to copy.

Orpheus the stutterer: a poetics of silence
Text by Alan Loney
64 pages, Hardcover, Coptic stitch with channeled thread
8” x 13” (closed)
Letterpress printed from photopolymer plates & collagraph, hand-colored with acrylic ink wash
Edition of 40: 10 archival/artist’s proofs, 30 copies for distribution
2013
$600

If you are interested in purchasing a copy, or have any questions or comments about the book, please email Aaron Cohick, Printer of The Press at Colorado College, at aaron(DOT)cohick(AT)coloradocollege(DOT)edu.

Some production images, as well as more thoughts on & around Orpheus, can be found here, on the blog of CO Springs artist Andy Tirado. The post was written by Grace Gahagan, a student at Colorado College.